CPH:DOX industry awards winners 2026 Courtesy of Michael Kaack The winners of the industry awards of the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, CPH:DOX, were unveiled in the Danish capital on Thursday evening, and they include names whose past films have made a splash.
Among them are director Asmae El Moudir, who made waves and won awards with her 2023 feature The Mother of All Lies, which followed her search for truth in her family background via a combination of personal and national history, as well as director Kathryn Ferguson, known for the likes of Sinéad O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares and BAFTA-nominated short film Nostalgie.
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In addition to the winners of the CPH:INDUSTRY Awards, three awards for immersive non-fiction were handed out.
Check out all the winners below.
Eurimages New Lab Outreach Award The award worth €30,000 ($34,755) went to Haut et Court Doc for the CPH:ROUGHCUT project Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me by director El Moudir and producer Emma Lepers. The jury cited “the audacity to shine a light on the bright colors of darkness and reveal a hidden story through a daring, innovative and singular artistic vision. The film focuses on a community of young adults with xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare condition that makes sunlight fatal, traveling to Norway to live under the polar night.
Eurimages New Lab Innovation Award The award worth €20,000 ($23,170) went to Anna Lena Films for the CPH:FORUM project Cosmofonia by director Véréna Paravel and producer Florence Cohen. Said the jury: “We are pleased to recognize a project that feels innovative in the truest sense, and that expands the possibilities of presentation beyond the black box. For a project that opens new worlds of previously unheard sounds and unseen images, and that pushes the art of cinema beyond the realm of human perception.
The “immersive, sensory film” by French anthropologist, filmmaker, and artist approaches documentary filmmaking about animals and plants in a new way, filmed from their perspective or that of their immediate surroundings. Cosmofonia explores the inaudible sounds and voices, including infrasonic vibrations, seismic noises, codes between different species, and acoustic traces of ecological collapse and survival.
Sandbox Films Science Pitch Prize The prize worth $25,000 goes to the CPH:FORUM project Matrescence by director Kathryn Ferguson and producers Rosie Crerar and Elanor Emptage. The jury said: “It’s a film about brave and punk scientists that have to use their own bodies to find answers for the rest of the population. The film we selected sheds light on an urgent, underexplored world of science that affects everyone, and we found it had an astonishing blend of artistic merit with scientific inquiry.
A description of Matrescence promises “a genre-defying, cinematic documentary that explores the transformative journey of motherhood, adapted from the groundbreaking book [with the same title] by Lucy Jones. With powerful visual storytelling, the film will interweave the rigorous scientific research and poetry of Lucy’s writing, with personal stories from a diverse range of contributors to offer a radical and profound examination of maternal metamorphosis. Ultimately, the feature aims to spark conversation around the way contemporary Western society treats its mothers, with a view to offer solutions and create lasting change.”
Al Jazeera Documentary Channel Co-Production Award The €15,000 ($17,380) award went to CPH:FORUM project Everything Is Red and Grey by directors Shourideh C. Molavi and Shrouq Alaila. “We were especially impressed by the strength of the filmmaking team, the focused POV in creative elements which form a critical account for the historical record, and the undeniable urgency of this project,” the jury said.
“A group of young Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza overcome the tragic killing of their friend and use their tools of creative resistance to document their own genocide and their communities beyond the colonial lens of rubble and cardboard boxes,” reads a synopsis of the project. ARTE Award The ARTE Award was handed out to two CPH:FORUM projects in the form of two consultations with Rough Cut Services, totalling a value of €2,500 ($2,900) each. One winner is the above-mentioned Everything Is Red and Grey, the other one is We Are Volcanoes by directors Sharon Yeung and Natalie Chao, for which no synopsis was immediately available.
Jacob Burns Film Center Award The grant of a stipend and residency, including access to editing and post-producing facilities totaling a value of approximately $10,000, went to the CPH:FORUM project The Calling by Beniamino Barrese. The jury said the project “promises to be a singularly exploratory endeavor in which a father and son meet halfway between collaboration and confrontation, celebration and familial reckoning.
The synopsis for the project reads: “An artist persuades his son to make a film about him – but as their visions collide the project unravels into an exploration on masculinity, the need to be seen, and cinema’s elusive promise of redemption from the ghosts that haunt and bind them both.” Rise and Shine Award The award went to the CPH:FORUM project My Father the Iceman by director Łukasz Kowalski. Said the jury: “There was one project which really made the hair stand up on the back of our necks. Taking a very personal angle on a political movement that threatens us all, it offers a unique story. We felt that everywhere in the world, audiences will be touched by this character’s crucial dilemma and the cost of making a courageous choice.”
So what is it about? “Ewa lives in the shadow of her father’s crime — the assassination of an anti-Apartheid leader in South Africa,” reads a synopsis. “Despite this, she fights for his release. When he returns to Poland after 30 years and joins the far right, she is forced to confront him.”
Unifrance & Titrafilm Doc Award The award totaling €5,500 ($6,370) in benefits went to the CPH:FORUM project Children of the Moonland by Roman Ďuriš. “In a world that feels broken and uncertain, the need for friendship has never been so strong,” said the jury. “This was a project that touched our hearts, which presented dreams as an act of resistance. While powerful tech giants talk of building a new world on the moon, other beautiful young minds are building their own world, in a moon land.”
In a devastated Slovak town poisoned by magnesite mining, six Roma children refuse to accept their harsh reality, “finding refuge in imagination, friendship, and their dreams that become their only form of resistance,” highlights a synopsis for the project.
Onassis ONX Award This award went to the CPH:LAB project Still Point, Turning World by lead artist Ben Joseph Andrews and producer Emma Roberts. The prize consists of tailored curatorial, technical, and business consultancy with studio access at the Onassis Ready facilities in Athens.
A description of the project calls it “an intimate audio-visual performance exploring the infinite complexity and interconnectedness of our ever-moving world, framed through the chronophotography of Étienne-Jules Marey and the lived experience of disabled artist Andrews.” NewImages Festival Award This honor went to the CPH:LAB project Mourning Glory by director Mathius Scibor and producer Pepe Le Puke.
A summary describes the project as “a taboo-defying adult VR experience presenting queer perspectives on the afterlife.” DOK Leipzig Award The DOK Leipzig Award offers the selected project participation in the DOK Exchange XR Program showcase at DOK Leipzig in October. And this one also went to Mourning Glory.
Millennium Docs Against Gravity (MDAG) Award The award includes industry accreditations to the next edition of MDAG for two team members, as well as accommodation and travel expenses and a place at the main pitching session, the Progress Pitching Session at MDAG Industry, along with preparatory training with tutors. It went to the Change project My School Is Seized by Halyna Lavrinets. The jury said: “The project deals with the most vulnerable in the time of war – the children. It requires extra caution and the right attitude. This timely project tries to reveal how the Russian propaganda machine works and who these people are who fight it and have the courage to escape this heartbreaking situation.”
“Pavlo (18) escapes Russian occupation and, with a teacher and imprisoned collaborators, exposes a school system designed to groom children for war,” reads a synopsis. “Pavlo’s mission is not over until his brother Ivan (10) is out – before propaganda claims him for good.”
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